There's not an ounce of baby fat left on him, and he's got a frame to hold 285 pounds without losing a step. The player Gilman assistant Henry Russell once said played with a "ridiculous" motor never came off the field between tight end and defensive tackle, but he never slowed down, either, "a tribute to his character." …

"Henry is athletic and quick, but he's very technically sound, too. He does a really good job with his arms and gets off the snap, doesn't lose balance. If you try to cut him or go low in traffic, he's very good at keeping his feet."

RVB barely came off the field in his last three years and always—always—kept his feet. Poggi is a bit shorter and may be more of a quick-twitch guy; otherwise that's a tight comparison.

I hear your Opening has an… opening

Nike's high-falutin' big time big timer camp with the artsy name continues to issue invitations to Michigan recruits. IL OL Kyle Bosch is the eighth Michigan commit to get a trip to Oregon paid for, joining Logan Tuley-Tillman, Shane Morris, David Dawson, Jourdan Lewis, Mike McCray, Taco Charlton, and Jake Butt. Serious targets Laquon Treadwell, Leon McQuay III, and Joe Mathis (hey, top three at this instant) are also scheduled to attend. That is a lot of names I would normally bold if they weren't crammed together so tightly.

I'll be most interested in how McCray, Butt, and LTT show up. By this point we know what Morris and Dawson and Lewis and Charlton are (probably) going to do; the previous three haven't been making as much noise on the camp scene or, in LTT's case, are working their way back into healthy shape.

Joe Mathis knows how to plan a visit

Tim Sullivan catches up with CA DE Joe Mathis, who backs off his stated top three of Washington, Nebraska, and Michigan a little bit in favor of a broader top ten, declares he'll officially visit Hawaii—a team not in his top ten—and says Michigan sees the 6'3", 245 pound end as (surprise!) a Baltimore Raven($):

"When they've talked to me, they want me to play like a Terrell Suggs of the Baltimore Ravens," he said. "That's kind of the defensive player they'd want me to be at Michigan, a standup defensive end."

That would make him a WDE, which is plausible. He also mentions probable officials to Arizona State and Michigan. If those come off like that you might begin to feel cautiously good about landing Mathis—an official to sort of stated leader but not other sort of stated leaders would seem to bode well. Except this is one of those shapeshifting recruits, so… yeah. In an article just a day later($), Mathis says he'll visit Michigan and Washington officially but isn't sure about going back to Nebraska because he was there for four days and thus risks death by boredom if he ever returns*. In an article a day after that one($), Mathis says he is "definitely" visiting Michigan for the OSU game—which is in Columbus—and may go to LSU for their game against Alabama.

Next week: Mathis declares Miami his leader and that he is a peanut butterfly.

*[this may not be an exact quote]

2014 Caremeter: incrementing

The pool of 2014 players who are not random names to be googled if they become relevant at a future date incremented by one after the Sound Mind, Sound Body camp when Cass Tech CB/WR Damon Webb picked up a Michigan offer. He joins DE Malik McDowell as an in-state kid with an offer widely regarded to be a Michigan lean; add in Todd Howard protégé Parrker Westphal—still not a typo—and those are your contenders for first 2014 commit. Ace covered Webb's impressive performance at the SMSB camp yesterday…

Webb turned heads a couple weeks ago when he blanketed Laquon Treadwell at the IMG 7-on-7 and he built on that with an MVP-worthy performance yesterday. Despite being a year younger, Webb has more bulk on his 5'11" frame than his teammate Jourdan Lewis, and like Lewis he's an outstanding athlete.

Also like Lewis, Webb can play either wide receiver or cornerback at the next level, though his size suggests that corner is his optimal position. He was fantastic playing corner in the one-on-one drills, staying step-for-step with Lewis—though Jourdan managed to bring in a diving catch—and 2013 Notre Dame commit James Onwualu, who was torching the less-heralded prospects. Webb faced Onwualu three times, and aside from slipping on a hitch route, he came out on top.

…and someone asked Allen Trieu for a instate top ten($) on the Scout message board that featured Webb #3 behind McDowell and Grand Rapids dual-sport star Drake Harris, who will play wideout if he picks football for college. Those three players were a cut above a trailing group of nine including all three Cass linebackers and yet another Bullough from Traverse City who will be an early commit to Michigan State. This one's named Byron.

Webb looks like he'll extend Cass Tech's streak of sending a corner recruit to a BCS school to a remarkable six straight years. They're even growing them a little bigger these days.

“It would play a factor,” he explained. “I’d be comfortable there. I’d know that. And that’s a main factor - feeling comfortable.”

“I’m looking for comfortablity in a college and I would like my parents to come see me and play. That’s a big factor too. If I’m comfortable there, and then the education – if they have my major and what I plan to study.”

“I went for the spring game … Michigan was real fun. All the coaches had their attention on me. I got to talk to all the coaches besides Brady Hoke. He was stuck talking to reporters.

“It was real fun. The crowd was real hyped. It wasn’t as big as a normal Big House game, but it was still fun.”

He says a decision won't come until he's in the midst of his senior year. I bet that timeline changes.

Elsewhere in 2014 recruits to maybe care about some, early five-star OL Damian Prince tells 247 he's "really interested($)" in Michigan and Tremendous catches up with FL OL Mason Cole, who claims offers from M, OSU, and Florida amongst others. Cole moved from Chicago when he was eight and still has a ton of family in the area; he's also planning a visit in early August. He'll be one to keep an eye on.

Other SMSB Takes

You've read Ace's take on things from the camp unless you're a bad person. Others are also saying things about activities. 247's Clint Brewster($) on Shane Morris's showing:

Morris dropped-jaws with his impeccable footwork and ultra-quick release. Morris is so smooth and sound in his mechanics and can effortlessly fire the ball down field with just a quick flick of his wrist. Morris has also bulked up to over 200 pounds of solid muscle. The future couldn’t look any brighter for Michigan with Morris under center.

I'll take it. The rest of the article continues in that vein about Michigan recruits, though, so you may want to take that with a grain of salt.

Maize and Blue News has takes on the relevant folks in attendance, and the evaluations are on the more credible end of things. Pargoff's take on LTT:

OL Logan Tuley-Tillman – Peoria (Ill.)

Tuley-Tillman noted that he has lost a fair amount of weight recently, but still has some pounds to drop. The latter part of that statement was evident, though the improved conditioning appeared to help his game. He wasn’t as impressive as Dawson, but had a solid showing overall. There were some good reps and some not so good ones.

The biggest area for improvement right now remains conditioning. He has the feet and the athleticism to play at the Big Ten level, but he still needs to drop some fat and replace it with muscle.

Dawson only attended the first day of the camp, but was the standout of the offensive line group as he has been at several of the recent camps he has attended in the last few months. Physically, Dawson is starting to develop his upper body, which was an area that was lacking earlier in his career. His strength, as a result, has also improved and he is unbeatable once he locks on to defenders. Dawson always brings a passion to compete and shows good leadership skills as well.

Malik McDowell, meanwhile, arrived at the camp looking "noticeably thicker" and is now a strapping 280 pounds. LTT "did a good job handling a very capable group of speed rushers and was much lighter on his feet than his last performance."

Allen Trieu's defensive recap says McDowell was possibly the best player there despite being a rising junior($) and has the usual level of praise for Jourdan Lewis:

Michigan commit Jourdan Lewis again locked up nearly everyone he went up against. He has great feet, change of direction and excellent ball skills. His long arms allow him to play a little bigger than his listed size too.

Dukes Kerfuffle

OH WR Jaron Dukes is committed to Michigan, and Michigan is committed to him. This is news because one of the Ohio State insiders ("Nevadabuck," if you follow things closely enough to have heard of random internet insiders with occasionally-accurate information and a massively inflated view of themselves) claimed that Michigan was dropping the kid. A flurry of worried phone calls later and there's the usual array of clearing-the-air-type articles($).

Nothing to see here, etc. Michigan loves them some oversized WRs with large catching radii, and Dukes is that in spades.

Two OL Michigan would normally be in on but for having all the OL already: Cass Tech OL Dennis Finley has just blown up, getting offers from Wisconsin, MSU, and OSU after his SMSB showing, and Eleven Warriors talks with OH OL Matt Miller, the younger brother of center heir apparent Jack Miller, after his appearance at OSU's camp.

Corey, Jake, Max, or Riley could go either way, but that would subtract from guy total, not add to it.

Byron I certainly hope is a boy.

But you're right, there's a reason I didn't put an exact count on it. I'm sure you could research which are boys and which are girls...but at the rate they're popping them out, I'm not sure even the Bullough family cares.

Interesting that Finley is blowing up like he is, good for him. Watching his film he certainly has the frame and athleticism to turn into a very functional big ten lineman. However, I also think the explosion of offers has to do with the pace at which offensive linemen, especially the midwest ones, are flying off the shelves. The best linemen left in the midwest are Riley Norman at #25 and he apparently might not even play football, and then you have Lovell Peterson and Kyle Meadows out of Ohio, but the OSU staff has seen both of them in-person and chose to offer Finley instead.

Maybe some other years he would have ended up with an offer, but with the relationship Michigan has with Cass Tech you have to figure they're more happy with who they have then they would be with him. But here's hoping he turns into a good lineman. At Illinois or Iowa (if they offer) preferrably.

Ya, I had heard it was a track and field thing as well. I know football takes up a lot of your time, but wouldn't a full ride scholarship still be worthwhile, and couldn't he pull off both? It's certainly an interesting situation. If they don't get Finley they're going to be pretty desperate for OL this year since their only one just decommitted. They're going to have to start poaching whoever they think are the best sleeper options from lower tier B1G programs and MAC programs.

I had also read that Norman is looking for a scholly for track and field from some of the bigger programs down south. And if he wants to truly become an Olympian, he probably doesn't have rime for both.

It's not that difficult to do both, if you're a guy like Denard who just wants to show up and run in the meets because you're really fast, but not if you want to excel and track and you do one of the events that includes a lot of technique (like the throws).

Track has a winter and spring season, both of which infringe a lot on football practices. If your emphasis is football and you want to do track as well, you can pull it off. If your emphasis is track and you want to play football as well, you're going to have a tough time, since you'd miss all of spring practices and probably all of the bowl practices and the bowl game. Also - your scholarship would count toward the football total, and no football program would want a scholarship used on a guy who put the track team first.

That said, I don't know how good fo a shot he has at being a big time shot putter. He threw 61-2.5 at the state meet this year, which was the top distance of any division, but for comparison, Anthony Zettel threw 61-8 last year, and Mike Martin threw 63-9 his senior year. Joey Sarantos threw 61-11 his junior year (he threw 61-7.5 his senior year). Now, these were all very good throwers obviously, but Norman is by no means the best shot putter in recent history in Michigan, so to have Olympic hopes is wishful thinking, to say the least.

Now, if it's simply that he prefers track over football and would rather take a track scholarship somewhere than a football scholarship, that's his choice and he's good enough for that.

Exactly. Not saying Finley will be bad by any means, and the sure has the frame to be great, but June is turing into 'December' of years past. With the rate recruting is going these days, offers and recruits 'blowing-up' in middle of June is probably akin to yester-year's flurry of offers in Nov-Dec-Jan to recruits needed to address needs missed on the first and second round of offers.

He was playing baseball all spring, so that camp was about all he did with regard to football. Good performance, yeah, but he's been quieter than some of these kids who have been going to camp after camp...

Morris has got to be vastly underrated to be turning in stellar performance after stellar performance at camps and not be a consensus 5-star. I think his early commitment and the fact that he's such a Michigan lock are causing him to miss out on a lot of the ratings hype of the recruiting services. Oh well.

No, because he's almost a 5-star. It's not like he's ranked #188 or something and turning in these performances. He's nearly a unanimous top-25 prospect nationally, so it's really, really hard to be vastly underrated at that point.

He's turned in a lot of great performaces, one pretty average performance in Dallas, and less than stellar numbers in his junior season. He's rated very high, and that's probably where he should be.

EDIT: Rivals has Shane at #22 nationally, the exact same spot Kalis finished last year. Was Kalis underrated? He dominated everything he did as well. Point is, when only 21 players nationally, at all positions, are ranked ahead of you, that's pretty damn high, and hard to argue that you're underrated.

Does anyone know if Michigan is going to save some money this fall by only have to official visit the current 21 guys (or even less since some of the current commits cuurently live in Schemmy Hall) and only give officials to 5-10 uncommited players? Would they normally give officials to lots of other players? Or does it not matter?

that's a pretty good description of "nevadabuck". However, he is exteremely well connected (because his family is extremely wealthy). I don't think he's just making stuff up, because there's really no point in making stuff up about Dukes, so it'll be interesting to see if the real story eventually comes out.

I'm just saying there's no reason for a multi-millionaire to wake up one morning and make up a rumor about Jaron Dukes, someone Ohio State has no interest in. Why wouldn't he make up a rumor about Mike McCray instead?

My point is that he's not some anonymous kid in his mom's basement. He also has nothing to really gain from making stuff up. It's really too obscure of a rumor to bother making up.

There are plenty of OSU fans who can't stand the guy, but in my experience, he's been very accurate. I think he gets in trouble when he calls a recruit to OSU before a kid makes it public, then the kid later changes his mind (or is in the middle of a post-visit high). He's also not great when he's formulating his own opinion (he was way off on the whole Tatgate stuff), but for actual knowledge of happenings inside the program, he's got the goods.